Even by the low standard of Astaire/Rogers movies, the story in Shall We Dance is terrible. It often doesn't make sense and plot points jump out of nowhere. It's like the writers just got drunk and wrote a bunch of stuff and hoped for the best.
The supporting cast also struggles. Even the ever-reliable Edward Everett Horton seems more unlikable than amusing; only Eric Blore manages to drag any laughs out of the material.
Musically the movie is on better footing. Not only are the songs by George Gershwin, but so is the score, which includes a dog-walking theme performed by classical orchestras as "promenade." It contains three of the best songs George & Ira Gershwin ever wrote - Let's Call the Whole Thing Of, They Can't Take That Away from Me, and They All Laughed.
And while it takes an inexcusably long time to get any dance numbers, when they come they're terrific, including a great solo tap number, a roller skating fox trot, and a balletic thing with a very bendable lady named Harriet Hoctor.
The more musical second half of this film is decent, at least relative to the first part, but it's a shame that so much musical talent is undone by such terrible scripting. I suppose the feeling, based on other Astaire movies, was that the bar was pretty low, but the poor box office for this movie proved that there are limits.
The supporting cast also struggles. Even the ever-reliable Edward Everett Horton seems more unlikable than amusing; only Eric Blore manages to drag any laughs out of the material.
Musically the movie is on better footing. Not only are the songs by George Gershwin, but so is the score, which includes a dog-walking theme performed by classical orchestras as "promenade." It contains three of the best songs George & Ira Gershwin ever wrote - Let's Call the Whole Thing Of, They Can't Take That Away from Me, and They All Laughed.
And while it takes an inexcusably long time to get any dance numbers, when they come they're terrific, including a great solo tap number, a roller skating fox trot, and a balletic thing with a very bendable lady named Harriet Hoctor.
The more musical second half of this film is decent, at least relative to the first part, but it's a shame that so much musical talent is undone by such terrible scripting. I suppose the feeling, based on other Astaire movies, was that the bar was pretty low, but the poor box office for this movie proved that there are limits.